Wednesday, August 5, 1998 Last modified at 12:57 a.m. on Wednesday, August 5, 1998

Partisan fight trips up Head Start program

WASHINGTON (AP) - A fight over union wages and tuition vouchers is holding up renewal of Head Start, a popular preschool program that has had decades of bipartisan support.

As a result, the chairman of the committee that wrote legislation extending the program has taken the highly unusual step of trying to rewrite the measure in order to regain Democratic support and move it to the House floor for a vote.

The House Education and Workforce Committee had approved the legislation last week on a party line vote after a rancorous debate over how much to pay construction workers, whether to allow vouchers and whether children should be let in the program if their mothers do not help officials track down their fathers.

"Never in the history of the program has there been a partisan vote," Helen Blank, who has tracked the program since 1978 for the Children's Defense Fund, said Tuesday. "Usually people keep Head Start above the political fray. I don't know what's going on."

Rep. William Goodling, R-Pa., chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee, said he couldn't stop his GOP colleagues from attaching controversial measures to the bill.

"I'm not a dictator," he said.

"There were those out there who wanted to find a way to cause problems."

All sides agree that the three items at issue have little to do with the central mission of Head Start. But each is symbolic of a larger political battle, with parties staking out familiar territory.

As it stands, the legislation would:

-Introduce vouchers into the program for the first time, giving some parents money to take their children to non-Head Start preschool programs.

The GOP has forcefully pushed vouchers for school-age children as well, arguing that they give parents more choice. Democrats say vouchers take needed money away from classes that serve everyone.

-Remove the long-standing requirement that union wages be paid for any Head Start construction projects. Republicans have long opposed this provision, saying it inflates costs, but it enjoys considerable Democratic and some GOP support.

-Ban children from the program if their mothers do not help to locate their fathers in order to collect child support.

The 1996 welfare bill requires this cooperation, but opponents say it's not fair to punish children whose mothers are not cooperating. And they argue that it would damage the crucial relationship between Head Start workers and parents.

Goodling had included the union wage repeal in his version of the bill, but the other two items were added in amendments introduced by Rep. Frank Riggs, R-Calif., chairman of the subcommittee that wrote the bill.

Goodling, who abstained from voting on these amendments, said he will meet with GOP House leaders soon to consider bringing the bill to the floor in September with a manager's amendment, where he would remove all three controversial measures.

He explained that in order to move the bill through the full House this year, he must use a provision that requires support of two-thirds of the House. That isn't possible unless these items are eliminated, he said.

But Riggs says there's enough time to handle the bill under normal procedures, where Republicans can control the legislation. He suggested that congressional staff try to find a compromise during the upcoming, month-long recess, but added that Democrats should not expect to get all three items out of the bill.

"That's the tail wagging the dog," he said. "We cannot allow them to define bipartisanship."